Yandex is negotiating the sale of its Yango Israel service, local Calcalist reports, citing sources.
According to the publication, this is due to the requirement of the Russian government from September 1 to provide the FSB with access to data on the trips of taxi customers in all countries where the service is present. In the “Yandex” deny holding negotiations on the sale.
According to Calcalist, the sale of Yango to an Israeli company will cut the service’s ties with Russia and, among other things, could make it more competitive in the Israeli market.
In Israel, under the Yango brand, in addition to taxis, there is a Yango Wind scooter rental service, as well as a Yango Deli delivery service.
On August 8, an investigation was released on Meduza, the authors of which found out that all the data of the Yandex Go taxi service, as well as its foreign counterpart Yango (or Yandex Go), are now stored in Russian data centers. From September 1, the FSB will be able to access them.
After the release of the investigation, Finland and Norway banned the transfer of data from customers of Yandex’s foreign taxi service to Russia. The Georgian data protection service has begun checking the company.
Yandex itself assures that “travel data can only be obtained by law enforcement agencies of the country where the trip was made” and that after September 1 “this logic will not change.”
In 2019, taxi ride data issued by Yandex to Russian police officers allowed fabricate a criminal case against Meduza journalist Ivan Golunov, who was planted drugs by police officers. Among the data released were Golunov’s trips outside of Russia, in particular, to Meduza’s office in Latvia.
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2023-08-10 11:31:25
